


The Fear of Falling Apart

by Rjbower17



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Angst, Death, Dr.Hart, F/F, Friendship, Gay, Love, Nothing Too Gruesome, Self Harm, Therapy, Warnings if ur triggered by hospital stuff, Zack/Trini Brotp, hospital au, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:48:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rjbower17/pseuds/Rjbower17
Summary: Zack and Trini are there for each other through thick and thin. What happens when Zack's mom ends up in the hospital? What happens when Trini starts to have feelings for Dr. Hart?Title from This is Gospel by p!atd





	1. Chapter 1

Trini and Zack have been friends for a really long time. Such a long time that Zack knows exactly where to tickle Trini into submission, and Trini knows exactly where to kick Zack in the chest to get him to stop. Zack tells everyone about how they met in 4th grade when he stole Trini’s black crayon because he'd lost his. He leaves out the part where she pushed him to the ground to get it back. When 9 year old Trini sees the boy’s sad sad face as he cleans the dust from his knees, she offers to share her crayons and the rest is history.

Middle school and High school were different. A feeling that neither of them really belonged to anything but each other. A friendship that sustains over new beginnings. It's in the 9th grade when Trini’s mother offers Zack a ride home after school that Trini realizes that the boy isn't exactly very well off. Living in a trailer home on the side of a mountain, is something Trini never expected from Zack.

She knows her friend as loud, out going, confident in himself. He'd never once let on that he and his family might be struggling to make ends meet.

He seems weary when he exits the car, like Trini knows his truth now, that he doesn't deserve her friendship. He's a few feet away from the car, head down, when Trini calls out to him “See you tomorrow, Z”

And that's all he needs to reassure him that everything is okay.

When Trini gets over the amount of critters that hang around the mountain, Zack and her deem it their new hangout spot (an upgrade from Trini's room, where they were always forced to keep the door ajar, regardless of the amount of time Trini assured her mother “I DONT LIKE HIM LIKE THAT”).

They mediate, and take laps in the quarry, and race each other up the mountain. Zack invites her in one night when it's gotten too late for Trini to head home. She meets Zack's mother, and not his father, but she soon finds that the woman has enough love to make up for his absence.

It's funny at first, the way Zack is so different in front of his mother. More gentle, more kind. Like she wipes away his inhibitions and he can just be.

Mrs. Taylor teaches Trini how to play chess, and how to make Zack smile that Zack way. She picks up on Mandarin phrases spoken between mother and son, and surprises Zack one day when she tells him to shut up in his mother's native language.

Trini helps Mrs. Taylor with her English, teaches her the nonsensical idioms of said language, and a little Spanish too. They take turns saying the Chinese and Spanish versions of words as they make each move in a game of chess.

Trini tells Zack that she's gay, one cold night camped out on the mountain when Mrs. Taylor has had enough of their teenage antics for the night. He holds her close to his chest as they keep warm next to the fire. “I love you no matter what” he says as she lets go of a few tears.

Later he mentions that maybe he already knew.

“How would you already know?” She pushes him lightly as he puts out the fire.

“Well, you never showed any interest in me”, he smiles triumphantly, “and no straight girl can resist-”, he makes a motion of flipping his not long enough hair over his shoulder “-Zachary Taylor”

His mother never asks any questions like “when are you and Trini going to start dating?” Or “why are you two just friends?”

She puts two and two together after a while. Trini doesn't have to say anything. When she comes out to her parents and her mother kicks her out for a night, Trini comes into the trailer crying her eyes out. Zack's not home but she knows where they keep the spare key. Trini doesn't speak. Just tucks her head into the older woman's neck. Mrs. Taylor holds her til she's asleep. Zack gets home to see them tucked together on the couch. He takes a picture with his phone, a photo that would later be framed and placed next to the tiny tv.

The next time Trini comes by, the newly added rainbow flag on the wall doesn't go unnoticed.

They graduate high school, and start college. Separate schools but they're both local. Trini spends most of her nights at the Taylor’s household even though her parents are paying half of her tuition. She'd started a band with a couple girls from school. The gigs payed enough to keep her afloat, not having to talk to her mom for money or mooching off the already struggling Taylor family. She bought groceries and picked up small expenses for the two people she considered her actual family whenever she was financially capable. Zack on the other hand, was use to helping bring money into the house since his job at the local Krispy Kreme at age 15. It wasn't great, but it payed the bills and Trini loved him a little more each time he brought home free donuts.

Things are okay for awhile. Mrs. Taylor, Zack, and Trini eat dinner together every night and the couch doubles at Trini's bed, but she doesn't mind. Trini's parents don't call, but no communication is better than getting screamed at in Spanish about “no puedes gustan las chicas”

Things are okay until Trini drives up the mountain on an otherwise seemingly normal afternoon only to be greeted by an ambulance a few feet away from the trailer, the sight of Mrs. Taylor on a stretcher makes her more than uneasy.

Trini's following behind the ambulance closely in her yellow buggy en route to the hospital. She's thinking that maybe talking on the phone while driving should be allowed to call your best friend to tell him his mother is in an ambulance and on her way to a hospital.

The phone rings twice before Zack's ever charming voice sounds through the speaker: “what's shakin, Bacon?”

“ZACK” she's crying out because she doesn't know what else to say, but he can tell there's something wrong, like a flip of a switch he's tender and worried and fight or flight is kicking in just from the sound of her voice.

“Tri, what's wrong?”

“It's your mom, she's in an ambulance. I'm following it to the hospital right now,” she manages to say holding back tears. She can't cry yet. She has to be strong for Zack. She can't cry when she has to drive.

He's in the middle of A Krispy Kreme shift but he might as well be in a room alone. He loses his grip on his cell phone, Trini's voice heard yelling his name as the device crashes into the tiled floor.

After calling out his name for the 6th time with no reply, Trini makes a sharp left at high speed.

\----

The bell to the Krispy Kreme rings out loud enough to scare a good amount of the customers, but most of the donut patrons go back to minding their business when they realize that the cause of such an outburst came from an unsuspecting barely 5 feet tall girl standing at the door.

Trini doesn't notice that her harsh push on the door gathered any attention because her only concern is finding Zack and getting him in her car. She speed walks to the counter taking on all of her surroundings like she's a secret spy gathering intel.

She finds him a moment later, sunken onto the ground behind the countertop with his back pressed to the wall. He's spaced out with a fountain of tears sprouting from his dark brown eyes. Trini hops over the counter without missing a beat, lifts him off the ground from under his arms and walks him out of the donut shop, bearing most of his weight.

\----

When they get to the emergency room, the two are so frantic that a nurse thinks that both of them are hurt.

“We're fine, we're looking for his mother, she just got driven here in an ambulance”, Trini explains to the best of her ability.

The nurse directs them to a desk where Zack gathers enough breath to tell the secretary his mother's name and she tells them the room she's been admitted into.

If they hadn't already been complete messes, entering the room and seeing the older woman hooked up to machines and out cold is like suffering their own heart attacks.

They stand on each side of her, grasping each hand. Zack doesn't know what to do, they don't know what's happened or if she's okay. He doesn't care. He drops to his knees and starts to pray. A jumbled speedy mess of words that Trini doesn't understand. She can't tell if it's because of the change in language or because of the new wave of tears.

That's when Trini can't hold it in anymore. She decides that now that she's gotten Zack with his mother, she doesn't have to be strong anymore. The tears come out in an ugly burst and don't stop. She squeezes onto Mrs. Taylor’s hand for her own comfort more than anything else. She cries. For the woman in the bed who doesn't deserve to die. For the boy across from her who's got no other family. For all the times Mrs. Taylor has made her feel loved.

It's only a few minutes later, Trini and Zack both looking like they've just been hit by cars, that a young woman walks in holding a clipboard.

They both look up at the sound of footsteps, “hello, I'm Dr. Hart, I'm assuming you two are family of Mrs. Taylor?”

The first thing Trini notices about the woman is the care in her voice. Then her eyes, warm and friendly. A resort away from the current heartbreak.

“I'm Zack, her son. This is Trini.”

The brown skinned doctor shakes both their hands offering a comforting smile that almost makes Trini forget about the destruction lying right beside where she'd been standing. Trini knows it's not the time or place to be feeling any pulls of attraction but she can't help but take note of the warmth of the stranger’s fingers wrapping around her own. She tries to pass it off with her vulnerability at the moment.

“Okay, Zack”, Dr. Hart announces, “will you step outside for a moment so I could give you information about your mother?”

He looks up from his mother to look her in the eyes, a confused glint in his eyes until- “Oh, Trini's family.” He offers with finality, “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”

The doctor seems to understand the closeness between the two with a curt nod as she proceeds to flip through the pages of her clipboard and take a deep breath.

“Your mother called 911 complaining of blurred vision and dizziness and according to the report, they found her on the floor when they got there, we sent her for some brain scans and blood tests and we’ll let you know as soon as we get the results, but right now everything seems stable”, she finishes her little speech, sucking in another desperate breath, she doesn't seem to like being the barer of bad news.

With a thank you from both Trini and Zack, Dr. Hart leaves the room.

\----

Waiting for the results to the tests prove more difficult than Trini had thought. At least now they knew she was stable and breathing. But Dr. Hart left things open ended like those tests could come back saying anything. It takes a few hours for them to see Dr. Hart again but when they do it feels like Jesus finally answering their prayers.

“Your mother has a brain tumor towards the right side of her occipital lobe, which explains why she experienced vision loss in her left eye. We're going to have to take a biopsy of the tumor and see if it's cancerous and then we'll go from there”

Zack's distraught at the news but at least content with the fact that they're making progress. He just has one question: “Do you know when she going to wake up?”

“We gave her some sedatives to make her go to sleep and take away her pain, but a few days at the most,” she does her best to reassure him.

Trini has her head down from the time the doctor starts speaking until she leaves the room. The information too much to digest.

Dr. Hart leaves the room as soon as Zack sends her a message of his understanding.

\----

They decide to stay the night, because security isn't kicking them out and Trini doesn't want to know what Zack would do if he had to let go of his mother's hand.

He's most content sitting next to her, feeling her pulse through her fingers, so everyone just leaves him be. The nurses learn to work around him when they come in to check her vitals every few hours.

Trini on the other hand can't stand the sight of her like that, the gas mask, the pale blue complexion, still, helpless. The incessant beeping an annoyance more than a comfort. The silence and static picture leave room for her to think. She doesn't want to think.

It's dark outside by the time she goes roaming around the hospital floors. She finds a food court for the visitors and brings Zack back a sandwich that he doesn't eat. He pokes at it til she tells him that he has to eat it or he'll be in the hospital next.

He doesn't mention that she hasn't eaten either.

It's 3 hours later that Zack falls asleep in a chair next to the hospital bed, hand still wrapped around hers.

Trini can't sleep.

She decides her best option is to explore the hospital halls once more, until she tires of the repetitive squeaky clean white walls and tiled floors. She figures wherever she finds herself in the morning won't be too much of a predicament.

She sits on a bench towards the edge of the ward they're currently in. Doubling over in her seated position looking small, she rubs the tired out of her eyes, holding her hands to her face as she thinks about the new information about Mrs. Taylor. Dr. Hart eyes her as she passes through the hallway, slowing her movements until she's stopped in front of Trini. She doesn't usually consult visitors wondering about. She pushes away her desire to speak to the girl by assuring herself that it's her job to take care of people.

“You alright?” She asks, looking down at Trini as she removes her hands from her face.

Trini sighs. “Not really, Dr. Hart,” she doesn't intend to sound mean, but she's too tired to reel it back it. “Sorry. That came out wrong,” she still tries to backtrack.

“It's okay. And please call me Kim,” the doctor smiles at her thinking this will mark the end of their conversation.

“Okay. Kim? Can you tell me about Mrs. Taylor? Without sparing any details?”

Trini's pleading now and Kimberly can't exactly say no to someone in so much pain. She sits down next to the shorter girl steadying her breath.

“We don't really know more than I already told you. We’ll know more after the biopsy.”

“I know,” Trini starts. And stops. And starts again. “Okay, Zack's not the smartest dude in the world, but I know about shit. But like how do you even get a biopsy of her brain? Do you have to cut her head open?”

Kim giggles at this, “you don't have to insult him to ask me questions, Trini,” she suggests and Trini likes the banter but dislikes her still lack of answer.

She urges her to answer question with a raise of her eyebrows and a pleading in her eyes. Kim won't admit it to herself in the moment  but she can't resist that pout.

“No, we don't have to cut her head open. We drill a hole into the back of her skull and stick a needle in it that will collect a piece of the tumor that we'll be able to take and run an MRI and a CT scan and we'll be able to tell you if it's benign or malignant”

Trini nods. “Will it hurt her?”

“She won't be awake-”

“Obviously,” Trini cuts her off.

Kim smiles. “Okay Doctor,”she addresses Trini, “But any damage will be worth fixing the brain tumor situation”

Trini can get on board with that.

“Thank you,” she breathes out, “Sorry for being a pain in the butt”

“It's okay,” Kim says, grasping Trini's hand in her own, “We all cope in different ways,” she soothes rubbing her knuckles, Trini appreciates the comfort for a moment until, “You, just choose to be an asshole”.

Trini gasps looking up from their joined hands to share a smile with the doctor. Her first smile since seeing the ambulance pull away from the mountain.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

It's been two days now and Zack's back hurts from sleeping in a metal chair and Trini's eyes burn from getting just about no sleep at all. She makes a habit of finding Dr. Hart at 2 in the morning when her shift has just ended. Trini likes the way her eyes start to droop, the way her voice seems softer somehow, like she's too afraid to wake herself from her almost asleep state. She uses the guise of wanting to talk about Mrs. Taylor’s condition, but she's mostly in it for the way Kimberly makes her smile even when she's in one of the most shitty situations she could imagine. On the first night, Trini blames her lack of sleep on Kim's ability to make her laugh so readily. She decides that maybe that isn't exactly true, a few nights later.

Zack's mother is awake now. But Zack still isn't leaving her side anytime soon. They've taken the piece of tumor out of her brain to scan and she sports a patch of bloody gauze on the back of her head, but she's on enough painkillers to smile when she's coherent. Zack's just happy she's breathing. Kim tells him that they'll have the test results by the end of the day and he squirms in his seat every time someone with a clipboard walks passed his mother's room.

Kim goes to find Trini all three nights that she's there and Trini figures she might as well go along with it. There's just something pulling about Kim's caring eyes and the way she seaks only her. They talk about their childhoods and Kim learns that Trini's science grades in high school were actually even better than hers. Kim asks about Trini's brothers and Kim has never seen her happier. They talk about how Kim knew she wanted to be a doctor, and somehow even before she says it Trini knows Kim was born to help others.

As for Kim, she's not completely sure why she stays an hour after her shift to talk to this girl who isn't even biologically related to her patient when she could be home sleeping or catching up on Big Brother. She decides that maybe she'll figure it out before it gets out of hand ,but someone beats her too it.

Dr. Jason Scott waltzes up to a desk where Kim starts her 12 hour shift doing paper work, grinning ear to ear while an unsuspecting Kimberly is looking down and writing vigorously. “So Kimberly, A little birdie told me that you were hanging with that girl again last night. What's that all about?”

Kim huffs looking up at him, “would that “little birdie” happen to be Dr. Cranston?”

“Maybe”

“I'd kill Billy, if he weren't so sweet.” Kim whispers more to herself than to Jason, a wrinkle in her forehead from her frustration but a grin at the thought of her delightful co-worker.

“That still. Doesn't answer my question,” Jason teases poking at the woman's neck.

Resisting the urge to giggle at the contact, Kim removes his hand with a grunt. Looking up, she gifts him with a glare and “Listen Scott, I appreciate the prying,but you're a general surgeon, not a Psychiatrist”, before putting down her pen and walking in the other direction.

Jason isn't hindered because of this. He's used to Kim playing hard to get and he's just getting started.

\----

Mrs. Taylor gets her news from Dr. Hart with a sigh and wet eyes. The older woman listens carefully from her hospital bed gripping Zack’s and Trini's hands with all the strength she has left.

“According to the scan, the tumor is the malignant,” Kim says with an air that proves she hates this part of her job. Trini recognizes her ability to remain professional, she admires that.

Mrs. Taylor, still not herself due to the effects of the medication, nods along with an intense frown.

“That's bad, right?” Zack asks, because of course Zack asks.

“Yeah, Zack,” Trini gruffs, because she's trying to be a supportive friend, but really Zack read a fucking book.

“It seems that we've caught the tumor early enough that it hasn't spread to other parts of her brain. It's currently localized to a section of her brain that will only affect her vision. So while it's not looking too good, it could be a whole lot worse. We have options and there's a good chance your mother will come out of this alive”, Kim tries to reassure Zack before continuing her ramble.

“So what do we do now?” Kim is caught off guard by Trini's question, more so by her voice than the context itself. It scares her the way she zones out momentarily while changing her focus to Trini's face.

“We’d like to start her off with some Chemotherapy for a few months and monitor the change in growth, if we find that the chemo isn't doing it's job, we'll have to open her up” The doctor explains, trying to lean back into her duties that don't require getting flustered by cute girls.

“We want to keep her here for a few more days and if we find that she's still stable, she'll be discharged” Kim says, looking down at her clipboard, not in a “I'm reading the clipboard” kind of way, but a “I can't look you guys in the eyes anymore, because this really sucks” way. Trini's never seen her look so feeble.

  
\----

While Zack still refuses to leave his mother's side, Trini decides that 3 days in the same clothes and just splashing water on her face in the hospital bathroom has been long enough. Heading to the trailer to shower and get Zack and her a change of clothes, she can't help but wonder how much she would hate to be in Kim's shoes, because she knows how much it sucks to be on the receiving end of the information, but she can't imagine feeling like someone's life was in her hands. It's freeing and startling all at once, because she's helpless, because Trini can hold Mrs. Taylor's hand, and feed her the hospital jello on a plastic spoon, but Kim decides whether she lives or dies.

She decides that maybe a donut will make things a little less somber and that maybe Zack would like a donut too. So she's waiting in line in her 2 sizes too large yellow sweater, looking small and cold, a general “don't fuck with me” face, mixed with a “life sucks and then you die” pout, when a man approaches her looking like he couldn't be happier.

He's got these bright blue eyes and a smile for miles, and Trini would find him attractive if she played for that team. When she notices his stride is pointed in her direction, she thinks maybe he's going towards the door to leave.

But of course he isn't. “You're Trini, right?” He says in this chipper voice and Trini is starting to resent how upbeat he is.

“Yeah, and who are you?”, she looks up at the taller boy through her eyelashes and a scowl.

“Oh, I'm sorry”, he says putting out his hand to shake, “I'm Jason...or Dr. Scott, I work at the hospital with Dr. Hart.”

“Oh well hi,” Trini shakes his hand, still confused why he'd even come talk to her or know who she is, unless of course Kim happens to talk about her to her co workers, and by the looks of it, anything Kim told Jason about her had to be good for him to be smiling so wide.

But then all at once, he's drawing his eyebrows together and dropping his voice, “I'm really sorry about your mother in law”

Okay, now Trini's really confused, “Mrs. Taylor isn't my mother in law, Zack and I are just friends”, she clarifies with a chuckle because the idea of her and Zack is just laughable. “Oh” he says scratching the back of his neck like he just gained all the information he needs, and Trini thinks he's about to come onto her so right before she steps in front of him to get her donuts, she leaves him with one more thing, “sorry, buddy. I don't play for your team”

She expects one of the usual reactions 1) angry storming off, or 2) continued pursuing as some sort of challenge. But Jason's eyes light up as she steps away from him and he's tripping over his feet as he steps up to her again, “wait, I wasn't hitting on you”

And that's when another man steps up next to him, coming from the bathroom, Trini assumes, and takes Jason's hand. Trini looks up the other boy inquisitively, searching for a lie, but she only sees honesty and joy in their eyes. “This is Dr. Billy Cranston, head cardiologist at Angel Grove Hospital and best of all: my boyfriend,” Jason says, like his announcing that Billy has just won an oscar. “Billy, this is Trini”, “that girl Kim keeps running away to talk to”, he adds a little lower as if Trini can't hear him.

“Hello, Trini, it's a pleasure to meet you”, Billy says smiling ear to ear. “But we better get back to the hospital before our break is over” Trini laughs and nods; understanding immediately the couple's dynamic, Billy: logical, Jason: impulsive, both of them extremely positive.

Trini feels lighter when she gets back in her car, like she soaked up all their sunshine.

\----

Zack emerges from the hospital bathroom in his new set of clothes triumphantly, “I feel like a new man”.

Trini's leaning on the wall opposite the bathroom door, always there to knock Zack down a peg, “your hair is greasier than a frying pan”

“Yeah? Well? You're ugly” Zack grumbles, crossing his arms and poking out his bottom lip.

Trini doesn't move, just stares him down, raising her eyebrows, waiting. It's only a few seconds of silence before Zack sighs, “fine, you're not ugly” he slugs himself back towards his mother's room with a satisfied Trini in tow.

\----

Trini isn't sure what she's expecting when she finds a sticky note on Mrs. Taylor's door that says

Trini,

Meet me in the food court in 20 min

KH

But she listens because she likes Kim and maybe this is important or maybe she just wants to hang out, but this does seem sort of urgent, or else Kim would wait til her shift ends.

When she's sitting at a table 20 minutes later waiting for Kim she's nervous. A tingle in her stomach that she knows isn't hunger. And when she sees Kim walking down the aisle towards her table all the breath is taken out of her.

“Hey”, Kim says, sitting down, “Hey”, Trini answers her, a sharp breath before and after the word.

“You okay?” Kim asks, sensing the edge in her voice, covering Trini's hand with her own.

“Yeah,” she asserts quickly, “I mean other than the whole “my best friends mom is potentially dying thing”.

“Yeah, um, about that. I wanted to apologize for Jason if he came on too strong or assuming anything, he means well, he was just excited, he has this crazy notion that you and are like a thing”, Kim ushers out in a pleading manner, a shaky laugh coming right after.

“No, he didn't offend me of anything, he seems sweet, I just thought he was into me for a weird second before Billy showed up”

“Oh” Kim seems relieved and disappointed at the same time, relieved because Jason overstated the cringe fest at Krispy Kreme, but disappointed that Trini didn't say anything about their relationship.

“Look, Kim, I like you…”, Trini starts.

“But…”, Kim interjects, preparing herself for the rejection.

“But I'm just going through a lot right now”, she pauses, “you know that better than anyone, I love talking to you, and I would love to stay friends, I just need some time if you wanted anything else out of this”

“No, I totally get it. Friends. For now.”

And Kim's not exactly happy about that, but it seems better than the total rejection she thought she'd get.

\----

When Trini enters Mrs. Taylor's hospital room again, it's almost as if nothing has changed. She’s sat up in her hospital bed, with Zack and chess board beside her, and by the looks of it the two are half way through an intense match. Zack notices her presence, with a smug grin on his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Cuz you're in love”, he sing songs, like he's talking to a puppy.

Trini huffs, not willing to give him anymore information than he already has. “Yeah? And why do you say that?”

“First of all: Dr. Scott told me about how you brighten up at the mention of Dr. Hart’s name.  
Second of all: I saw you two in the food court looking all smiley.  
And finally: Dr. Hart is hot, who wouldn't like her”

“Okay, sure, Zack. Believe what you want, but I know the truth”, Trini chastises, indignantly, hating the way she's automatically defensive, but enjoying the familial banter.

“Cmon Trini, I might be confined to this bed, and having trouble with my vision, but even I can see the way you look at her”, Mrs. Taylor asserts.

And Trini can't fight with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update...I don't have any excuses ...but let me know if you're still into this and want more and if so I'll definitely try to not make the next chapter come out forever later...thx for reading


	3. Chapter 3

The night after Zack and his mother accuse Trini about her feelings is a little weird. Mostly because she hadn't really thought about it, more concerned about what's going on with Mrs. Taylor. But the two seemed so encouraging, even with the unfortunate circumstances. It's weird because half of Trini's brain is dedicated to sollen depression and the other half is chained to the blooming possibilities that come with a new crush.

So she's waiting at their usual bench 5 minutes before Kim's shift ends, chastising herself for being so all over the place. She's got her eyes closed under the idea that she should get as much rest as possible being that her sleep schedule has been pretty nonexistent, when she notices the presence of something beside her. She opens her eyes, expecting Kim, but finding Dr. Cranston.

“Billy? Right?”

He nods. “I just wanted to say hello again, Jason and I kind of made a hasty get away earlier.”

“That's okay, Doctors gotta do their job”

Billy giggles in this way that Trini hadn't expected, she could see why Jason liked him so much.

“Well I hope you and Kim have fun,” he mentions, and Trini's looking down into herself, embarrassed by the the way everyone has no problem linking the two women together.

“Eh em,” Kim's cough takes them both by surprise, “talking about me behind my back again Dr. C?”

“I would never do such a thing,” Billy says mock offended, with his hands up, “the fact that you would accuse me of something so preposterous is degrading, my dear.”

Kim and Trini laugh at him together and the product is almost harmonious. Kim's looking at Billy like “did you just hear that laugh?, she's literally an angel”, and now Billy is laughing too.

“Anyway, I'll leave you to it, I should probably go find Jason before he sends out a search team again.”

With that Billy's gone, having turned down and near hallway and out of earshot, Kim's taken his place in the space next to Trini, and Kim sighs like she's finally alone.

“Did you eat anything today?” Kim asks like she's never cared about anything more than Trini's health.

Trini nods simply, too overwhelmed by Kim's genuine interest to formulate words.

“Good, we don't want you in the hospital now too”, Kim suggests while playing with a strand on Trini's hair.

“Yeah, cause you'd like getting to see me everyday against my will too much”, Trini jokes back still trying to keep herself together.

“Well, I probably wouldn't get to see you in the case of you not eating, but if you ever do want an excuse to see me you could bang your head against the nearest wall.” Kim only half jokes.

“Oh yeah, because that flashlight you shine in your patient's eyes to check for a concussion is sooo sexy”

With that Kim pushes Trini's shoulder gently and tries to hide her laugh. “How else would I see you after Zack's mom is discharged tomorrow?” The doctor whispers suddenly insecure.

Trini covers her hand with her own, rubbing the taller girl's knuckles with her thumb, “I'll be here once a month when Mrs. Taylor gets her chemo, and maybe it wouldn't hurt if you gave me your number”.

Kim smiles at that, “Good because I really enjoy talking to you, I know we've known each other less than a week, but you're already important to me, and I don't want to lose that”

“You won't, I promise”

  
\----

It's only a moment after they go their separate ways that Trini gets a text message that reads: Try to sleep well in that hospital chair I know you love so much <3

Trini: Get home safe Dr.H

Kim: I can't tell if I like when you call me dr...like it's hot but we're friends so it shouldn't be hot…

Trini: GOOD NIGHT KIM

Kim: No, call me dr again

Trini: …

Kim: pls

Trini: okay DOCTOR text me when you get home so I know you weren't kidnaped and harvested for your crazy brain

Kim: 1)awww you care  
2) don't insult my brain..without my brain I can't fix other people's brains

Trini: tru but still, let me know

Kim: <3

“Who ya texting?” Comes Zack's voice, joking and imposing but quiet due to his mother sleeping between them. He'd gone back to his mostly jocular self today, knowing that his mother's health was on the right track.

“Kim….I mean Dr. Hart”, Trini answers not looking up from her phone.

“Wait wait wait, let me get this straight, you thought that it was weirder to be on a first name basis with a doctor than it is to have her number?”

Trini huffs, “okay, I'm obviously not saving myself either way”.

“So, when are you guys gonna fuck? Or is it more of a romantic kind of thing? Have you made out in the janitor's closet yet?”, Zack puts his foot in his mouth repeatedly.

“God, I wish your mother was awake to slap you upside the head right about now.”

“That doesn't answer my question, little Trini”, Zack pushes, unaffected by Trini's usual tactics to beat around the bush.

“I don't know, Zack, I like her, but what if like we start dating and it goes horribly wrong and then she still has to treat your mom, and I've only known her for a few days, what if she's the spiteful type and uses her revenge on your mom”

“Okay, you're literally dragging it, I don't think Dr. Hart is that type of person at all”

Trini pauses looking down, “...I know. I'm just being paranoid.”

“Well you're usually not paranoid with other girls, you're usually like confident and, and, ….I can't think of another word… but my point is: why do you think you're being so awkward about it?”

“I guess it just feels too easy in a way it hasn't before, because usually it takes time for me to like someone but we've fallen into this so quickly and naturally, and I like her and I know she likes me but there's also so much else to deal with. It's not exactly the best time to fall in love when your family is confined to a hospital bed”.

Zack sees the truth in Trini's eyes and can't handle being so far away from her, he gets up from his chair and wraps his arms around Trini's shoulders from behind, leaning down to where she's sitting to squeeze her comfortably, “listen, T, you know mom wouldn't want you to put your life on hold, because she's not exactly in the best health.”

“I just feel like I have to choose, and that's not fair”, Trini's crying now, Zack doesn't have to look her in the eyes to know that.

“You know, Kim wouldn't make you choose, and if she does, than you know she's not the one”.

  
\----

The next morning Kim wakes up in her one bedroom apartment with a smile on her face despite the incessant blaring of her alarm. She's happy because Mrs. Taylor is doing good, and she gets to see Trini smile, and then she remembers texting the shorter girl well into the night, and just imagining “good night” and “good morning” texts everyday makes her heart beat just a little faster. She picks up her phone to scroll through the messages of the night before when she remembers that Mrs.Taylor is being discharged today and that means no more constant Trini.

Before she realizes what she's doing, Kim's rushing around her apartment and finding the closest pair of scrubs to wear. She wants to get to the hospital as early as possible to spend time with Trini before they leave and before her shift starts. God, if Jason could see her now, he'd never let her live this down.

She walks out the door 5 minutes later with a granola bar shoved in her mouth and the taste of tooth paste still on her tongue.

\----

By the time Kim finally arrives at the hospital, she's talked enough sense into herself to tone down the telltale signs of a crazed crush. She's strolling down the hallway of Mrs.Taylor’s room trying to keep her breathing steady, ready to peek inside the room to fetch Trini. Instead she finds Zack and Mrs.Taylor watching an Asian drama on the tv hanging on the wall, and she's left wondering how long the hospital had had such diverse channels.

Zack notices her presence almost immediately and the doctor sends the boy a nod as if to say “hey” and “where's Trini?” in one movement. She expects to answer with “in the bathroom” or “went to the food court”, but he's getting out of his chair and meeting her in the hallway.

He's got this smile on his face that tells Kim he knows what's up and honestly she shouldn't have expected Trini not to say anything to Zack. It's not like she's hiding anything going on between them, she just feels a little dirty making a move at such an inconvenient time. Regardless, Zack doesn't seem too put off by it.

Before speaking, he looks back at his mother to confirm that 1)she's alright, and 2) that she won't be able to hear him. “Trini went home to decorate, were throwing mom a little welcome home party!” He whisper yells, as if this is going to be the party of the summer.

Kim finds that it's hard to not match Zack's energy level while having a conversation with him. She wonders if Trini bet gets tired keeping up with him. “Oh well is she going to be back before you guys leave this afternoon?”  
Kim asks likes she'll never see the other girl again.

“Yeah, I think so”

“Okay, cool. I'll see you when your mom gets discharged.”

With that Kim turns to leave, needing to escape and come down from the High she'd built up. Her brain expected to see Trini and just because she hadn't didn't stop all the serotonin built up from the excitement, and she didn't feel like bursting in the middle of the hallway.

She's gotten herself just about under control, when a figure pops out in front of her eliciting a frightened yelp. The look of pure fear on her face is only momentary, replaced a second later by a face that says “are you fucking kidding me?”

Of course the figure in question happened to be Jason.

“Do you always have to be such a child?” She deadpanned, punching him in the shoulder.

“What? I was just trying to help. You already looked pretty shook before I scared you”, Jason says, crossing his arms, leaning on the wall behind him, and looking pretty satisfied with himself.

“Stop using teenage slang, Scott. You're a doctor, not a pubescent misfit”

“You're just mad, you're not part of the squad,” Dr. Scott raises his eyebrows at her suggestively hoping to elicit some sort of reaction.

Instead she looks down at her nails, bored. “You done yet?”

The boy-man is sulking now, “hey, just because you didn't get to see your girlfriend doesn't mean you have to be mean to me,” he pouts in a baby voice.

“She's not my girlfriend, J. And I'm mad cuz you scared me”

“Yeah, yeah”, he says waving her off and starting to walk away, “whatever you say, princess”

\----

Kim finds herself tapping her pen while filing paperwork on her latest patient, more concerned with waiting for Trini to walk into the hospital than with this particular case of head trauma.

It's getting to be too much, she's aware of that, but it doesn't stop the way her stomach flips when Trini passes the main desk she's currently situated behind.

It's kind of ethereal, the way the old yellowing hospital lights still brighten up Trini's face just right, and suddenly it occurs to Kim that she's never seen Trini outside of these dirty white walls, that Trini's never seen her in anything but scrubs. And she wants everything all at once: to experience the world with Trini, but also keep this their little secret tucked safely between the emergency room and the psychiatric ward.

Trini's waving in front of Kim's face and calling he name trying to gain her attention, “Kim, anybody home, hello, Dr. Hart”

“Oh, sorry, I just, spaced out for a second,” Kim explains, pitching the bridge of her nose and clenching her eyes shut.

“You alright?” Trini questions with kind eyes.

“Yeah, I was just thinking” (about you)

“Okay, well, I see you later”

And Trini's gone in an instant, and Kim psyched herself out for nothing. She could've seen that smile she'd realized she loves or at least made an attempt at a joke, but instead she zoned out and now Trini probably thinks she's crazy.

\----

Kim finds her later, tucked into a booth in the food court eating a turkey sandwich with Zack sat across from her.

Trini invites her to sit down and she does. It's weird at first with Zack smiling at them with a smug grin waiting for them to do who knows what. But Kim sits there bearing witness to their sibling like banter and she gets how close they are. She finds it funny now that Jason and her thought for a second that these two were a couple.

And their dynamic is cool in a way that it's inclusive and she finds herself teasing Trini alongside Zack, and laughing at her pout, and then throwing Trini's fries at Zack a moment later.

She finds herself in this joyous limbo of slow motion when she's able to enjoy the present and contemplate the future all at once. And she's thinking to herself that regardless of where things go with Trini, she's grateful for the last week spent by her side. She wishes she hadn't become so dependent on someone so easily pushed out of her life, but she couldn't help it with this one.

\----

Zack brings the car around to the front of the hospital and Trini is pushing Mrs.Taylor out the door in a wheelchair a few hours later.

It's only after Trini has helped the older woman into her that Mrs.Taylor nods in the direction behind her. Trini turns around to find Kim standing by the automatic doors to see them off. Kim finds herself content with leaving Trini with a wave, but Trini has other plans.

She walks up to the doctor with as much conviction as she can muster and pulls her into a hug. Pulling away, she whispers into the taller girl's ear, “I'll call you”, before placing a firm kiss on her cheek.

It's quick and Kim doesn't have a chance to respond before Trini's in the passenger seat and Zack's driving off, but it's enough to hold her together til the next time she sees Trini. She feels the tingle of Trini's lips still pressed to her cheek, long after the yellow car leaves the hospital parking lot.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I take a month to write chapter 2? Yes  
> Did I make up for it by writing chapter 3 in a day? Yes
> 
> Anyway idk if it's apparent but I've been doing some research for the shit I don't know...like Ik about the science stuff...but I haven't physically been in a hospital in like 3 or 4 years so ya ...and like I'm just not gonna get too deep into the logistics if that's okay ...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff happens...

"I'll call you” Trini had promised, and she does as soon as the three get home from the hospital. It's nothing extreme, no declarations of love or heart felt “I miss you”s, and Kim isn't sure what to expect when an unknown number pops up on her phone in the middle of her shift. Regardless, she picks up the call, all confusion gone when Trini's voice comes to life on the other side of the phone. It's rather simple, Trini's just telling Kim that they'd gotten home safe and that her patient is doing fine, if anything the conversation is more professional than personal, but it doesn't change the way Kim blushes in the middle of the hallway.

Kim feels a little weird texting her later that day, but she can't help it, she needs some time to get used to the drastic change of all day Trini to no Trini at all. Either way, the shorter girl doesn't seem to mind.

Kim: how did the surprise welcome home party go?

Trini: good! She pretends to hate our surprises, but we see right through her lies...how was work?

Kim: same as always, no pretty girls to talk to after tho

Trini: ...I'm right here

Kim: no, ur at home...I'm in my car

Trini: arE YOU TEXTING AND DRIVING ??? U HAVE A PHD BUT YOU DONT KNOW THATS DANGEROUS

Kim: chill...I just got in, I haven't even started it yet

Trini: cool cool cool

Kim: but imma start driving now so byeeee

Trini: bye drive safe

Kim almost wants to text and drive but she ultimately decides against it. This is honestly pathetic, the way her hands itch to retract from the steering wheel, reach her phone, and communicate with Trini.

But she holds her ground, making it home before spontaneous combustion. Luckily her apartment is only a 20 minute ride away from the hospital. And she texts Trini when she's in the safe confines of her bed, a simple “I'm home” but doesn't get an answer for an hour. She's almost mad, frustrated is a better word, but she shouldn't be. Like her emotions aren't making any sense, because Trini doesn't owe her anything, and she's kind of being super clingy, but she can't help it.

And she's kind of spiraling, watching Grey’s Anatomy(what it's fun to compare real life hospital to a tv show) and systematically checking her phone every two minutes until her phone buzzes during a commercial break.

Trini: SORRY CANT TEXT RN IM SCHOOLING ZACK IN MARIO KART

And sure Kim wants to be mad, but at least now she knows the other girl isn't ignoring her, she's just busy, and Kim needs to make her peace with Trini having her own life other than the one she saw in the hospital.

Kim: lol have fun

She contemplates adding “text me when ur done”, but she's still not sure if that's too forward, because Trini's not hers and Kim's not 100% sure that Trini feels the way she does and she doesn't want Trini to feel like she has to do anything.

But then god (Zordon?) is answering her prayers when she's almost fallen asleep, but her phone buzzes, breaking her out her light slumber. She almost doesn't catch the vibration of the device under her pillow, but alas the first thought her partially conscious mind conjures up is of a short Latina with the cutest smile she's ever seen. And okay: Kimberly Hart is awake.

And boy is she glad, when she reads her newest text.

Trini: are you working early tomorrow???

Kim: no y

Trini: you wanna meet me at Krispy Kreme in 15

Kim: it's a date!

Kim: ...if u want it to be…

Kim: yeah I'll see you there :/

Trini: okay weirdo

\----

Kimberly Ann Hart is patiently waiting in a corner booth at Angel Grove’s most beloved donut shop 20 minutes later. Trini's 5 minutes late: so what? It's not like she would invite her somewhere and then not show up. Right?

That's when it hits Kim that maybe this is all wrong. Her and Trini barely know each other and they're already setting up late night donut runs when they saw each other at the hospital less than 24 hrs ago.

They're strangers brought together by coincidence. She realizes that she doesn't know didly squat about the other girl. Her last name. Her favorite color. How she met Zack. What she does for a living.

The questions running through her head make it hard to notice Trini walk through the door of the donut shop. Kim's still all spaced out when the shorter girl reaches the table. “You okay there, stud?” Trini asks placing her hand on Kim's.

The action seems to restart Kim's engine, as she instantly pulls away from the contact. “Sorry this was a mistake” are the words that barely leave her lips as she tries to walk away.

Trini's kind of stepping out of her own comfort zone, and maybe even what would be deemed appropriate at all, but she's grabbing onto Kim's wrist and almost, (okay she totally is) pleading, “chill out, it's just coffee, maybe if we sit down you can tell me what's gotten you so shaken up”

It's this weird combination of calming and thoughtful, like Trini's voice puts the doctor in a trance she can't deny, and gives her every chance to make her own decision at the same time.

It's when Kim is sat down in the booth once more, that Trini walks away from her toward the counter. That's the moment Kim realizes that the shorter girl has memorized her coffee order from the nights spent in the hospital cafe. It's that particular thought that she clings onto while she waits for Trini to return.

As Trini sets down the coffee cups and a brown paper bag, Kim jerkily reaches towards her pocket to try to pay the other girl back.

“Don't worry, it's fine”, Trini sooths when Kim goes to hand her a $5 bill. Kim enjoys the date-like quality of the situation, but hates the dead air that follows.

Trini sips her coffee, burning her tongue. It's still too hot to drink comfortably, but not hot enough to stop her from tipping the cup towards her face, keeping her from dealing with the questionable girl in front of her.

After approximately all her taste buds have been roasted off and she decides her mouth has suffered enough, she finally breaks the silence.

“So what's up? Why are you acting like you just found out I'm a serial killer?”

Kim almost giggles at her words but she's too tied up by the back and forth of her emotions at the moment.

“It's nothing”

“Really?” Trini says like she's just been told she has a long lost sister, “cuz you just performed a proper romantic comedy attempt at running away”

“Sorry,..it just like hit me that like we know nothing about each other. Like we've known each other like a week and I really want to be part of your life but what really makes this special?”

Trini's expecting something a lot more outlandish than that. “Well. I mean I guess us meeting is just a coincidence, but it doesn't change that you kept me thinking positively during a really bad time, which is a really hard task. And it's only been a few days, so we shouldn't know everything already. It takes time. If it makes you feel better I want to get to know you too.”

Kim's like a deer caught in headlights. Trini's not mad. She doesn't think Kim's being too clingy. Crazy. Absolutely insane.

“Okay?” Trini asks, needing to know that Kim understands her.

“Okay.”

And that's how a “date” at Krispy Kreme at 1 in the morning turns into Trini and Kim bearing their souls, well not really, it's more of an exchange of trivial things, like Kim's third favorite color, and where Trini grew up. Like knowing her full name (Trinity Marie Gomez) somehow how makes their bond unbreakable. Kimberly is beyond aware that it doesn't, but it makes her feel better, feels like something tangible.

Trini doesn't mind as long as Kimberly is okay with returning the favor.

\----

Unfortunately Krispy Kreme closes at 2 am. Which means Kimberly’s and Trini's bonding time is about to get cut short.

Until Kim invites Trini into the warmth of her car, promising “just for a few more minutes”, it's quiet and wistful and Trini finds her body answering before she does.

Trini falls asleep in the passenger seat at 4:36 to the barely audible radio playing “Kiss me” by Sixpence none the richer. And Kim can't help but watch the way her chest rises as she breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay listen Ik it's been forever. I just have like no inspiration to continue this...so this was me posting what I had left. IF U ARE REALLY INTERESTED IN ME CONTINUING THIS LET ME KNOW...it just depends on how motivated I am from any feed back


	5. Chapter 5

Things are a little complicated after the night spent outside Krispy Kreme inside Kim’s messy car.

Kim feels kind of like she's just had a one night stand, walking into work only a few hours after Trini finally goes home. But instead of her muscles being tense from physical activity, her neck hurts from lying down in her front seat, she's beyond tired, and feeling so fucking confused about Trini.

Because it would be easier if Trini hadn't said all those things about wanting to get to know her better, or been so very understanding of her outburst. It would be easy if Kim could convince herself that Trini is playing hard to get. In that case she'd just move on. But the fact of the matter is that Trini's going through a hard time right now.

Texting Trini makes it easier, “good morning”s and “good night”s become a sort of saving grace over the next week, because even when the hospital is filled with screaming babies, and patients trying to test her patience, she still has someone to rely on.

Somehow the two of them end up going 6 days without hearing the others voice. Such a thought crosses Dr.Hart’s mind as a man gets rushed into the emergency room.

Of course she's not aware of this at the time, because as she's pondering romantic feelings, her beeper goes off calling her to the ER immediately.

After setting her eyes on the patient in question, Trini is the last thing on her mind. It's not hard to tell that the man is having a stroke. One side of his face drooping. One arm clenching the other. Slurred speech. Too dizzy to stand.

She's dealt with this before, in fact it's become sort of her specialty, but it doesn't stop the hammering in her chest, panic so inanely setting it.

It's not like she can do much. Administer the drugs. Keep track of vitals. Keep him comfortable.

And wait.

It's an hour later that the coroner is pronouncing him dead. Dr.Hart is left to look him in his blood shot, motionless eyes, a punishment for not saving him.

This has never happened before. Kim's never seen a patient die under her hand. She's sure that people she's cared for have passed, but not right in front of her, not in a way that makes her feel so at fault.

When she's feeling stressed out at work the usual protocol is to find Billy. Let him talk her off a bridge. But for some reason the first impulse shooting through her brain is sending her hand toward her phone, dialing a number that Jason would make fun of her for memorizing.

She doesn't pick up the first time, but by the third call Trini's voice is filling her right ear. “Hey, you okay?”and Kim's found herself on the floor of a stall in the staff bathroom.

She's shivering, crying, breathing heavy. “You didn't pick up. Why didn't you pick up?” Kimberly murmurs pleadingly.

“Kim, where are you?”

There's no answer. No sense of life on the other side. A crash. The line goes dead.

\----  
Trini wouldn't exactly call herself a determined person. She definitely wasn't someone to make New Years resolutions and actually stick to them, or go around making willy nilly promises.

She's helping Mrs.Taylor into a sitting position to eat her dinner when she feels the buzz of her phone in her back pocket. It's when she finally gets to see the caller, that the confusion sets in.

Because Kim should be in the middle of a shift right now.

Not calling Trini.

It's only the moment the picture of Kim's face on phone disappears and reappears for the third time that Trini starts to think that maybe this isn't a mistake.

Hearing the retched tone of the other girl's voice is enough to flip everything she's known herself to be.

It's enough to force a steel into her brown eyes that serve as purpose for her mission.

But finding Kimberly isn't easy. There's hospital security at every corner, that refuse to believe Dr.Hart has any sort of issue related to her, and only let Trini into staff quarters after 20 minutes of Kim not answering her phone.

She finds her on the floor of the bathroom covered in sweat from head to toe, knocked out.

No signs of struggle or attack. So Trini's pretty certain she got to this point by herself.

Trini sits on the floor adjacent to Kim, lifting the girl's head from the dirty floor, placing it into her lap, and starting to attempt to coax her out of her unconsciousness.

She's suddenly consumed by how bad she is at this. How Kim would be a lot better at making sure someone is alive. She thinks that checking Kim's pulse would be a reasonable place to start, but she herself is shaking to hard to differentiate between Kim’s potential heart beat and her own quivering.

It's then that she realizes Kim could be dead.

And she's crying. Crying too much to see the way Kimberly’s eyes twitch to life , her fingers grasping out for Trini's hand.

So unnoticeable that the contact startles the smaller girl.

The first moment of eye contact is ruined by Kimberly's staunch words. “I killed someone”

Trini can't entertain any of this nonsense at the moment.

“I killed someone”, she repeats like she's afraid Trini can't hear her.

Trini's too struck by this apparent resurrection. She drags Kim up into a sitting position against the tiled walls and throws herself into the other girl’s arms, forcing her to stay there.

“I killed someone”, Kim murmurs into Trini's ear.

“Shut up”, Trini warns.

“I…”

“Shut the fuck up, Kimberly,” she forces, holding her to her body as hard as she can.

\----

Somehow. Someway. An hour later, Trini's got a half sane Kimberly sitting in the hospital cafe. By this point, Kim's explained that “I killed someone”, loosely translates into “one of my patients had a stroke and died, and I feel like it's my fault, and then I had a panic attack and passed out on the ground, how's your day going so far?”

I doesn't take long to calm Kimberly down, but Trini knows it could take a lifetime to convince her that the people who die don't have Kimberly to blame.

She's not sure what to do other than never letting down the stoic exterior of “you did the best you could, it's not your fault”. But Kim just looks like she needs to get out of this place, the white light, and eerie buzz too much of a reminder of what she's done.

So Trini doesn't ask before taking her hand and pulling her outside to her car. Kim doesn't put up a fight, limp limbs easily gliding into Trini's care as she slips her into the passenger seat.

And Trini just drives. Drives until they start to see the mountain. She thinks Kim will ask her where they're going but she seems content wrapped into a ball, her knees to her chest as she stares out the window, spaced out.

Spaced out until Trini's stopped the car, made her way to the passenger side and opened her door.

“C’mon let's take a walk,” Trini says like she's coaxing a small child to put her shoes on.

It's sweet and enticing and Kim gets up wistfully, the wind carrying the wind.

Kim shivers under the mountainous breeze, just as Trini remembers the blanket she keeps in her trunk.

There's a brilliant moment of silence as Trini covers Kimberly’s shoulders with the thin material, pulling her closer simultaneously. Because Kim's eyes shine with a need, a need that Trini's never seen before.

It's not like the black irises she's seen before a one night stand, or the emptiness in the eyes of a hungry child, but something so aching, that Trini can't deny the hands that snake around her neck and pull her close. The warmth and comfort is something no one would want to escape, but Kim's exhausted and can't bare to stand much longer, even with Trini holding most of her weight. So the shorter girl makes quick work of finding a clean enough spot next to a tree to settle down.

Kim spends her night curled into Trini, unmoving save for the constant quivering. Trini sits holding the broken pieces together, Kim's uneven breaths on her neck.

When Trini wakes up, Kim's gone. No sign of her ever being here. All comfort lost the moment she realizes her absence. Trini’s left wondering for a startling second if she was ever there at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lowkey feel like I'm making Kim a little crazy...but emotional trauma ya know...and it's for a reason so ...shrug 
> 
> Anyway comment please, hope you enjoyed


	6. Chapter 6

Kimberly Hart is okay. Definitely alright. Not an ounce of sarcasm in her voice as she reassures Billy that she truly is okay after yesterday’s moment of lapsed integrity for the hundredth time as they walk through the hospital hallway.

She's certainly glad it wasn't Dr. Cranston who'd found her on the floor, covered in her own sweat and guilt. She wouldn't forgive herself for the worry on the man’s face even now. But being thankful that Billy wasn't her savior only reminds her of who was.

The doctor feels bad. Leaving Trini out on the cold mountain alone, after she'd lent herself to be Kimberly's everything. She’s aware that her own thoughts have gone too far to ever feel normal. Surely Jason would tell her to stop being so emo about everything if he could hear her inner monologue. Still she can't stop the mantra of “you can't doing anything right”.

It's startling, Billy's hand on her shoulder, breaking her out of her trance, not only because contact is seldom if at all with the other doctor, but because something is so haunting about the way Trini must feel, used and left out to dry.

“You sure you're alright?” He asks, searching her eyes like he's mining for gold in her deep brown irises, his mouth hanging agape.

“Yeah, Billy. I'm okay. I promise. I'm just a little shaken up.”

Shaken up isn't the half of it, when Kim catches a glimpse of long brown hair, and yellow converse.

Billy thinks she's seen a ghost until he adjusts his eyes to meet where Kim was currently looking. She too, only reaching a conclusion of the paranormal.

But alas, Trini Gomez was there. Standing in front of the two doctors, waiting for a reaction other than blatant surprise. She almost wants to wave her hand in front of the seemingly frozen duo in front of her.

“You guys good?”, she asks with a single eyebrow raised.

Billy coughs quietly, clearing the silent tension. “I guess we just weren't expecting such a beautiful guest so early in the morning.” He suggests, ever the gentlemen.

Kimberly, a perfect contrast to Billy’s cool demeanor, is busy ringing her fingers together like a guilty kindergartener.

“That's sweet Billy, but I think Kim’s got some other reasons for that look on her face.”

Trini leans in close, sure to be gaining Billy’s trust and comfort. “Would you mind if I stole our friend away for a moment?”

“Not in the slightest, Trini”, Billy all but shouts in glee, eager to get back a Kimberly that doesn't get lost in herself every few seconds.

Trini takes care in separating Kimberly's hands and securing one into her own, tugging her along like a heavy suitcase with broken wheels.

The bench Trini finds for them is one they'd sit at many times before when Zack's mom was still in the hospital. The familiarity is enough to give Kim the nerve to speak.  
Albeit, rushed and forced, Trini gets the message of her blame filled monologue before she gets out more than a few words.

“Hey,” the shorter girl soothes, a hand suddenly resting on Kimberly’s cheek, “it's okay. I'm not mad. I just wanted to make sure you were here, with like Billy or Jason, not alone with your thoughts”.

Kim’s breaths are uneven, but the resolve in her eyes tells Trini that she's okay. It's quiet and tender and Kimberly doesn't have to verbalize that she understands.

Trini leaves not long after, with a promise that she'll be back and a kiss on Kimberly’s forehead.

\----

Trini's stuck. Stuck between a cancer infested mother and a clearly falling off the handle ...friend?

Are they even friends anymore? She's not mad at the idea, it's just. Mrs. Taylor should be the main priority right now. She shouldn't be waltzing around all the questions of will she or won't she...kiss me? Love me? Leave me?  
But she knows it's too far gone, the budding of tempting shocks in her fingertips as she grasps onto Kim's hands for something to ground her, even when she's told herself “no”, she's so easily bringing her lips to the other girl's skin, yearning to feel the expanse of every inch of her body, only for the sake of knowing what she truly feels like.

“Too little too late”, Trini repeats as she pulls into the parking complex of Kimberly’s apartment. Her thoughts carrying her up to Kim's door without much worry about seeing her in a moment, only the selfish criminality she feels for the consideration for Zack and his mother that she's so innately missing.

Kim opens her door, a meek shell of tangled hair and wrinkled scrubs, having forgone changing out of her work clothes before tossing and turning in her bed for hours, waiting for Trini to remove the needle from the record of death forever playing on loop.

Again, Trini settles into the fact that they've crossed all kinds of friendship lines as she pulls off Kimberly’s shirt, searching for something soft to replace it with in her dresser, before removing her pants and helping her back into her own bed.

Kicking off her shoes, Trini pushes into the taller girl, easing Kim's head onto her chest, resting her arms behind her neck, as Kim nestles herself securely, arms needily wrapping around Trini's waist.

“Have you ever thought about hurting yourself?” Kim asks even toned.

“Aren't you the brain doctor?” Trini nudges back like Kim hadn't just posed a question with so much weight.

“I study the physical stuff mostly, people cut themselves for different reasons, but they keep coming back for the serotonin, the dopamine, I've just never understood the first time, the press of a blade on your own skin”.

Trini shifts, not put off by the topic, just wanting to look Kimberly in the face. “Do you want to hurt yourself?” She questions, forehead wrinkled, waiting.

Kim sits up, too jarred to formulate an answer from that angle. “I thought about it before I fainted, but i couldn't find anything in the stall to do it with, I don't think I could, honestly. I'd think too much about all the things happening, the skin cells separating, the inflammatory response, the platelets at the ready.” Kim twitches at her own words, her eyes focused somewhere far off.

Trini doesn't know what to say, reflexively reaches for the knuckles she'd busted on walls multiple times. “If you feel that way, maybe you should talk to someone, someone with a phd in psychology, not neural surgery.”

“I know. I will if I ever feel that way again. I think I've got a handle on it. A curiosity in a moment of weakness.”

\----

Kim's got a handle on it. Shaves her legs without a second thought, never questions the ease of a kitchen knife over her wrist. Tries not to play with her guilt, assigns blame to everything at once. It's a working tactic for the time being.

It's relatively easy to forget the face of the man she'd blamed herself for the death of as the days go by. Trini filling her eyes with the expanse of herself. A distraction in her work becomes throwing herself into being there for Trini. She knows life isn't about heros and villains. At the end of the day Kim has to be happy with herself first, and do her best for others second. But something about comforting Trini through Mrs. Taylor's illness reinstills a give and take between them.

The stress in Trini's brow shows itself through the following days. Zack's mother only getting weaker as time moves forward. A balancing act of how Trini and Kimberly decide whose turn it is to fall off the rail.

Th chemo is terrible. Kim doesn't feel good about it either, but she knows it's all they've got right now. She watches as the older woman starts to lose her hair, drop weight suddenly, her skin riddled with easy bruises. It's not something fun to look at.

Time moves and Kim forgets about the ailments of her own mind, too focused on traitor cells on the inside of Mrs. Taylor’s brain.

The tumor remains as Trini tries to feed her bites of soup as each day passes, as Zack cries himself to sleep on the cold surface of the mountain, as Kimberly amps up the round of chemo once more.

A cycle of wondering when the torture will end.

Kim's home, sitting at her desk, paper work splayed in front of her. Trini's there, somewhere in another room, keeping the doctor startling company.

It's not that Trini’s afraid to leave her alone, just rather not see the consequences if she does. It's a good moment for a while, a shred of light on their usually gloomy days, Kim gasping sharply, calling out Trini's name like a gleeful child.

Trini's by her side in an instant, looking at the two papers in front of her. Two pictures, scans of Mrs. Taylor's brain.

“Do you see that?” Kim asks like Trini's got a degree in “spot the difference”

“See what?”, she answers drawing herself closer to photos, looking between them carefully.

Kim draws out two rapid circles with her pen toward the edge of the tumor. In one of the photos part of the growth isn't there.

“The first picture is from 2 months ago when she was first checked into the hospital; the other is from a week ago. The tumor is receding. The chemo is working. At least a little bit”, Kim explains like she's found her life work in the small piece of brain tissue reclaimed by the rebel forces.

It's small, but it's something. A hope in the grand scheme of things, something to cling to when Mrs. Taylor needs help getting to the bathroom, when Zack can't bring himself to look at her, when they're stuck wishing for a miracle.

\----

Mrs. Taylor has chemo today, and Zack's got work. Trini really doesn't mind taking her. It's one more time she gets to see Kim without having to drive to her house.

It's been a nice air between them. Friends.

Friends who let each other cry, who cuddle occasionally, who also happen to be your best friend’s mom’s doctor.

It's not weird, just anti climatic. Kim tries not to think about how much Trini makes her skin crawl, how she really just wants to kiss her already.

It's a sure thing that Trini turns up at Kim's apartment at least twice a week with donuts and pajamas at the ready. It's a no judgement zone more than a love haven. They both appreciate the readily available dose of comfort.

When Trini helps Mrs. Taylor into the seat in the waiting room, Kim's already standing by the door, waiting for them. She holds the door open for Trini to push her wheelchair into the operation room.

It's quiet between the three of them, until it's time to actually do it. Mrs. Taylor is used to the dull prick as the iv enters her arm by now, the pinch is tame compared to the after effects, but Trini still winces at the image of broken skin. The deep purple on the inside of her forearm doesn't go away, the black and blue resurfacing for every treatment.

Kim leaves the room then, prompting her exit assuring that she'll be back.

“Thank you for coming with me, Trini”, Mrs. Taylor looks up toward graciously.

“You know Zack and I would do anything for you”, she responds, squeezing the older woman's free hand.

She smiles then, wide, unprompted.

“What?” Trini chuckles, at the sudden change in the other woman's demeanor.

“I'm happy is all.”

“Happy?” Trini can't seem to fathom it.

“Yes, that I have you and Zack, and that I have Dr. Hart to care for me, that if I go the three of you have each other.”

“Don't say that,” Trini whispers, a single tear running down her cheek.

“I'm sorry, sweetheart”, Mrs. Taylor coos back, “Everyday it feels more real, I've just made my peace knowing that you kids won't be alone.”

Trini sobs, stationary in her seat, too shaken to look for comfort anywhere else. Mrs. Taylor doesn't stop her, knows that tears don't leave unless you let them fall.

“You are my daughter, Trini, and believe me the last thing I want to do is leave you and Zack here without me, but I'm just glad you've found other people to lean on. Life isn't easy on your own. We know that. Our little family of three. Kim's your family now. Don't forget that when I'm gone”

“If”, Trini corrects, “if you're gone”

“If”, Mrs. Taylor confirms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's getting a little more heavy. I actually started planning out what I want for this a little more which hopefully is a good thing cuz usually I write random shit and make up plot as I go but Idk I'm kinda invested now. Let me know how I'm doing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that there's a trigger warning for mental illness and self harm.

“Why don't you kill yourself?”, Dr. Zordon, Kimberly’s new therapist, asks.

She knows he's using the Victor Frankl method of logotherapy, understands the reverse psychology of asking “why not die?” to get the answer of “why do you live?” Still she can't formulate an answer that's on any level of coherent.

She knows Dr. Zordon’s intentions, yet his caring tone transforms into a gray static in her brain, twisting her arm behind her back and pleading with her “why don't you kill yourself?”, the voice asks again and again until the words sounds too familiar to not be coming from her own mouth, until it's been more than and a few minutes and her therapist is still waiting for an answer.

The cozy room feels less like a safe space and more like a trap into a standardized test. “It's okay”, he offers after a while, “you don't have to know all the answers as concrete, it just will settle the brain to think about “why?” when we think about our feelings, rather than just the “what?”. When we can trace back our emotions to where they come from, it can make them so they don't totally consume us.”

Kim's not really sure she understands, wallowing in the mess, reliving every moment of terror sounds more like a curse than a remedy.

She still doesn't speak. Dr. Zordon tries again.

“You said you thought about cutting during your panic attack,” Kim shivers at those two last words, too consumed in the newness of it all, “what stopped you?”

“Trini”, she answers in a whisper, her eyes distant, surprised a moment later by the epiphany of her own words. She explains herself, “Trini, she's a friend, she's really important to me. She needs me right now. I don't want to do that to her.”

“So you understand that she values you?”

“Yes. I value her too.” Kim answers finally lifting her eyes to look into the man’s before her.

\----

Trini knows what deja vu feels like, understands the startling moment of epiphany and the misplaced fright that follows.

That's no different as once more she's driving up the mountain to the trailer home once more to check on Mrs. Taylor in between classes, and there's ambulances everywhere. Only this time when she gets out of her car she sees that Zack's is parked there too. She's not sure whether to run to the door or tip toe, afraid of shifting the smallest bit. She's too late to console Zack, as he follows the stretcher holding his mother out the door, she looks unconscious and he won't let go of her hand. His hand clasped over his mouth, cheeks soaked.

The two men holding the stretcher somehow pry his hand away, saying she'll be better off without him in the way.

The ambulance is gone in an instant, a muffled siren the only remaining evidence. Along with Zack, soaked in his own tears, a stark green in his skin tone, fumbling with the keys to his car, his hands shaking as he tries desperately to fit the key in the ignition.

Trini's by his car window in an instant, opening the door, “get in the passenger seat, let me drive”, she demands, too much in fight mode to let tears get in the way at the moment. Starting the car, she floors it, and Zack's not buckled and maybe it's not the smartest idea, but Zack's on the verge of suffocating himself and she knows the only cure is getting him to his mother.

Trini's not sure if he'll be able to talk or even understand anything she's saying but she tries anyway. “What happened, Zack? Take some deep breaths, calm down, and just tell me what happened.”

And he does, like a coke addict finally getting his fix, stops shaking, stops wondering what's to come, Trini's right hand comes off the steering wheel and holds it firmly within his own. She lets him have this, the warmth of his clammy palms still welcome. “I left her for one second. I heard a crash. And she was in the floor.”

“It's not your fault” she says and Zack doesn't defend himself. They both know that's where his brain went.

\----

Hospital beds are synonymous with home for Ms. Taylor at this point, but she's too unconscious for that thought to even cross her mind. It's been days since she'd arrived in the Emergency room for the second time in the last few months and Zack sits comfy on the window sill staring at his mother as each second passes.

Trini's off, exploring the hospital floors, looking anywhere but at her adopted mother. It's a little bit insane, how calm they are to be back where they started after months of chemotherapy. Zack and Trini remain settled in the epiphany that tears and panic won't change the current situation. The sight of each other even begins to be too much to bear, the bags under Zack's eyes, the stress rash breaking out under Trini's t-shirt collar.

Kim tries her best to keep things settled, pushing down her instinct to check for Ms. Taylor's pulse every five minutes. It proves quite difficult to get the three of them in a room together without crying instantaneously, but Kim wrangles Trini from the corner booth of the food court long enough to force her into the same room as Zack and his mother.

“I'm really sorry, guys. I just thought you'd want to hear this together, and honestly I only want to have to say it once,” Kim starts, her forehead wrinkled as she clenches the side of her clipboard. “The tumor spread to her Broca’s area, which is the area of the brain that is responsible for producing speech. So when she wakes up, she might not be able to speak and her motor skills will probably be affected as well, but we won't know for sure the exact effects until then.”

“But she'll be alive, right?” Trini asks, her line of vision adjacent to the wall, too repressed and small to look anywhere else.

Kim wasn't taught how to answer these questions. She took Biology and chemistry in college, not communications and her brain just wasn't built to answer these questions. She can't lie to Trini. “I...I don't know. We just have to wait.”

\----

When Kimberly’s shift ends she goes to find Trini. They have no plans, no course of action, every night she tries to convince the shorter girl to come stay the night at her apartment, but Trini insists that she rather stare at the white walls of the hospital hallways and steal jello from the cafeteria. She doesn't want to be a bother, doesn't want to tell Kimberly about all her terrible irrational thoughts, because Kimberly should be doing better at keeping Ms. Taylor alive and Trini can't handle looking Kim in the eye when it feels like she's the only one to blame.

“Trini” she calls out to her, when she sees her lying on a bench outside with her arms strewn across her stomach, staring idly at the motionless sky, her greasy hair tied in a bun, moving slightly in the wind.

The smaller girl doesn't answer. Kim lifts Trini's feet off the bench long enough to slide her own body into a sitting position under Trini's legs. “What?”, Trini finally offers her best attempt of being anything close to human right now.

“You okay?” Kim asks, stroking her leg, even though she knows the answer. Trini doesn't say anything, just sits up to look at Kim, shakes her head slightly to indicate “no” and finds herself a sobbing mess, choking out tears into Kim's chest for the third time this week.

When the tears are gone and Trini's got a blank stare again, Kim mindlessly playing with the baby hairs on the back of her neck, she decides it's alright time to be a little less deep, “you know you smell, right?”, Kim gripes, tugging just slightly on a loose strand of Trini's stringy hair. “You know I haven't showered in like 4 days, right?” Trini answers like she's some sort of all knowing oracle.

“Which is why, you and Zack should come shower at my apartment, before the hospital has to call the exterminators on you”, Kim suggests like a cure.

“If you can convince him to leave his mother's side, I'm down”

\----

Zack's easier to convince than she thought, and that's scary and rewarding at the same time. On one hand Zack is showered which is honestly good for everybody, but the defeat in his eyes is another surrender to disease. It's hard to look at someone's who's practically given up.

It would almost be funny, Zack in Kim's baggiest pair of sweatpants and an old care bear pajama shirt, if his eyes weren't so red, if he didn't look so lost.   
  
He forces Kim to drive him back to the hospital as soon as he's dressed. He's back in his place by the window sill of her room, watching his mother breathe.

\----

Trini's head is on Kim's shoulder and both of them are silent tucked into the warm blankets of Kim's bed. Trini's, now clean, hair is still wet and Kim can feel the cold creeping into her shirt.

“You warm enough?” Kim asks after the quiet starts to become too much.

Trini's flopped over suddenly, a crease in the bed from the points of her knees sinking into the mattress, the most force and energy she'd put behind any motion today, and Kim's too started by the new movement that she doesn't have time to contemplate the face coming toward her own.

She'd imagined it differently, their first kiss, she'd dreamt of soft and tender and delicate flower petals as she groped Trini's neck passionately. Instead she's met with Trini's dry lips, a fervor she hadn't expected from such a small body. Trini seems sure, but crazed and Kim isn't sure how to respond other than letting it happen. The pull back isn't drawn out and slow, Trini's eyes glaze over instead to a place that clearly isnt the present and Kim is left feeling far more unnerved than complete.

The shorter girl draws herself up and away from the doctor, propping herself on the corner of the mattress facing away from the girl she'd just taken by surprise. “Sorry,” she whispered into the dim abyss of static, “I just I don't know if I'm going to wake up tomorrow with a tumor in my brain and be unconscious and not able to speak and I just needed to do it before I melted into myself”

Trini doesn't allow a response, whisking up her shoes from the bedroom floor and all but running out the door, a slam to the apartment door, only loud enough to shake Kimberly’s remaining sanity loose from it's safe haven.

A moment of nothing is followed by manic exploration. A tyraid of Kimberly Hart flinging herself around her apartment, opening drawers only to slam them shut, compiling the perfect set. She finds herself alone sat on her living room carpet with liars and thieves among her. She tries to convince herself the words are spoken by her thoughts but the voices personify themselves into the tools that lie before her. Scissors. A lighter. A can opener. A kitchen knife.

The tears go without saying. A river bled from her eyes as sweat refuses to recede. A plentiful bounty of shrieks and cries empty from her aching stomach. Thoughts of Trini become too much to take in. They could have been everything, too perfect for others eyes, but had to go and ruin it.

The scissors, she decides at her lowest moment, opening them all the way and pressing the sharpened end against her arm, a moment of re lapsed judgement collapses a new tier in her brain as she struggles to move the blade across her skin, she can't. She won't. She drops the scissors. Somehow more ashamed of herself for not having the balls to go through with it.

Instead she pushes herself up from the floor, eager to punish herself for not being able to take on the first punishment. The stove is on, she realizes what she's done as she pulls away her scorched hand from the fire she’d just set, the pain something she doesn't wince at but the red of her hand something she'd dream of.

She turns on the faucet and sets the water to cold and steadies her burned hand underneath the stream. She allows herself as much.

\----

“What happened to your hand?” Dr. Zordon asks, like he already knows what she's done to herself.

“I burned it on my stove”, Kimberly quips, her eyes far off, her tone dry, uninterested.

“On purpose?”

“Yes”, she gives up in an instant, too tired to put up any fight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see. Should I continue? it's getting deep and weird and I don't plan my fics at all really so I don't even know how it's gonna end and everyone has so many issues and I'm ruining all of their lives and just let me know pls!!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning reminder: mental illness, self harm, mentions of death, etc

Therapy is helpful when Kimberly isn’t lying to Dr. Zordon. Somewhere deep in her mind she knows he’s only trying to help, she knows he sees right through her, the long sleeve shirts that cover her newly added cuts and bruises, the way she props herself in chairs, delicate yet rigid. The neurosurgeon thinks back to how impatient she was in learning to take a patient's blood in med school and can’t imagine the frustration in slowly making someone better through talk an hour a week, for them to lie to your face about it being better. Still she tells him that she has a good support system, people by her side. The truth being that Trini hadn’t spoken to her in weeks, granting her to push Billy and Jason farther and farther away.

Ms. Taylor awake and alive, yet often drowsy and unalert breathes soundly enough for Zack to take shifts at Krispy Kreme. Truth be told he looks just as bad as his mother. Trini comes to visit now and then, only when she knows Dr. Hart isn’t there. She thinks some distance will do them good. But Kimberly only wants to fix everything, asks Zack about her in any moment she can, grasps tightly onto the pyjama shirt Trini left at her apartment, holds the pillow in her sleep that still fadingly smells of the smaller girl.

The terror goes on far too long before Billy can no longer convince himself that everything is okay. He tries his best to make everything better, drives Kim to therapy on the days her hands shake too hard for her to drive, he spends his breaks with Ms. Taylor when no one else is around, gets Trini’s number from Zack to check in every few days. It’s more than any of them could wish for, something that didn’t know they needed.

And Jason’s not himself. No silly jokes or uninhibited smiles, he too curls up in a ball each night, the difference he realizes is that Kim has no one to hold her. And Billy understands that Jason can’t detach himself from the disaster like he can. Billy can’t blame him for falling apart when everyone else has.

And Trini isn’t immune to it either, she can barely look Zack in the eye, the veins so visible, the bags hanging low under his eyes, the permanent scowl etched into his face. She can’t breath every time she steps into the hospital as if her lungs are stolen when she’s made to visit the only thing that is truly hers, the way the people she loves have so violently been ripped away.

It all changes in a moment of desperation, a text message sent from Trini to Kim at 3 am. And she knows the chances of Kim being awake are slim to none, because Trini memorized her work schedule a long time ago.

_I hope you’re doing okay_

Is all it says but it might as well read _I miss you. I care so deeply for you it hurts and it would kill me to know that you’re hurting, that I hurt you_

Kim’s response is almost instantaneous.

Kim: go to sleep

Trini: no

Trini: I need to know if you’re okay

Kim: without you

Kim: no

Trini: playing the blame game I see

Kim: go to sleep

Trini: u can’t just run away from your problems

Kim: why not? You sure did

Trini doesn’t answer after that, she knows the monster she created, knows the only person who could fix this is herself. Instead there are 3 short knocks on Kimberly’s apartment door a half hour later. And Kim knows those knuckles, doesn’t have to look through the peep hole to know it’s Trini.

She doesn’t open the door, but Trini can feel the weight of her on the other side. “Look Kim, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run away. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I should’ve just kept starring at someone so broken everyday, watching the three people I’m closest to, die slowly in front of my eyes and not be able to do anything about it. I’m sorry that I couldn’t take care of you anymore, it’s just so difficult to try to make everything better when I was pretending that none of it was really happening. I’m so sorry…” Trini ends in a broken sob, not completely caring if Kim stuck around to hear all of it; content in at least letting some of it out.

“I didn’t come looking for you either,” Kim whispers her forehead propped up against the door, hoping Trini didn’t leave. “It’s both of our fault” and Kim remembers Zordon telling her that saying it is half the battle.

“Can you open the door?” Trini tries, trembling.

“No” Kim’s voice comes right after, “I’m afraid I’m going to kiss you.”

“Kimberly. Open the door”

And she does. Nothing wistful, the old wood creaking as the weight settles from the movement. And they really look at each other for a moment, the despair sewn into their skin. A moment of silence before Trini is caressing the breaks in Kim’s skin, tracing the marks of her own ill intent. And let’s be clear, Trini does this in an effort to understand and not of one to romanticize the battle Kim is fighting with herself. She knows she isn’t the answer to Kimberly’s questions, Trini was not destined to be someone’s remedy. But still there is a desire to quench the hole of yourself. So she lets Kimberly kiss her, and again it’s not beautiful, better than the first, but still no winner. Because Kim is trying to use up as much of herself as she can and Trini is letting her. Because the need for divergence from the numbness is necessary. Both girls know that this solves nothing, Kim is still going to hurt herself, Trini is still going to cry herself to sleep, they’re all going to keep dying, but it’s a nice change for the moment.

A passion for something.

Trini stops her when Kim tries her hand at removing clothing. Trini stops her in a moment of strength, because the pain in her chest is already too much and she doesn’t want to run away again, but she knows she might have to if they cross that line.

So they lie in Kimberly’s bed, Kimberly’s head on Trini’s chest, not daring to look each other in the eye, too lost in their own tornados. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen here bitch!!! Ik it’s been more than 2 months since I updated but I BEEN HAVING A HARD TIME OKAY. but tbh I’ve been super busy and personally lowkey going through IT. And this isn’t the best type of stuff to write when I’m already feeling shitty. I’m not Sure if anyone is still interested and I probably won’t finish if not so pls let me know if u want this finished or not. As always I appreciate everyone reading and commenting. <3


	9. Chapter 9

They fall into it all pretty easily. Trini showing up at Kim’s apartment every night, the Taylor’s trailer home always so dark and lonely, finding each other’s lips for a few moments before they run out of energy. Trini spends the night entangled in Kimberly’s self mutalated limbs. It’s not any better than before. They have each other breathing next to them but Trini still finds new cuts on Kim’s arm at the end of each week and Trini still shakes awake from the nightmares. 

They do breathe a little more evenly knowing that the other is okay. 

They see Ms. Taylor at the same time, willing themselves to live in the present where the older woman is still alive. There are laughs and smiles and Jason and Billy ease off of babysitting them all the time. 

Kim tries to take small steps, doesn’t seek out scissors or sharp objects unless Trini is around to stop her, tries to stop the white lies of “im trying” “I’m doing better” 

Trini tries not to run away from it all, holds Ms. Taylor’s cold hands between her own, signs Zack up for his own therapy sessions and all but forces him out the door. 

It’s two weeks of at least attempting to put themselves back together before the three of them are huddled around Ms. Taylor’s hospital bed midday on Dr. Hart’s lunch break. 

And it’s a beautiful symphony of laughs at something Trini said about Zack when he was a kid. And normally her son would be embarrassed at these stories but he’s just happy that his mother is feeling good enough to laugh with them.

His heart rate is normal, a constant beeping that no one can think about disappearing. She’s sitting up these days, playing chess with anyone who stops in, reaching out for people’s hands. And Zack thought this would be terrible, his mother no longer able to speak, but they know her well enough to see the words in her eyes, what she needs in a moment. She writes “I love you” in mandarin on small bits of paper for them to find whenever they come in. Kimberly saves them all in a box in her work locker. 

But it’s one day that’s a 180 turn from the better than usual she’s already been. A surge of energy, she looks content, happy even. 

And Zack cries at how beautiful she looks, holding her shoulders and just looking at her smile like that. 

Trini and Zack take solace in her bursting glow, like she’s ready to fight for her life again. Kim can’t believe how good her vitals are, and she wants to celebrate but she knows she isn’t part of that three person family, she knows Ms. Taylor, Zack, and Trini fit together like tattered broken puzzle pieces, that as a unit shine so much more than they ever could alone. She doesn’t want to ruin that. 

So she tries to leave after her lunch break even though she has nowhere to go, no longer wishing to intrude.

The only problem is Trini standing outside the hospital room door when Kim’s made it halfway down the hallway. Dr. Hart chances a look behind her at the sound of the shorter girl’s footsteps. 

And Trini is whispering “Wait” even though Kimberly can’t heat her. She sees her and that’s enough. 

“Thank you” Trini says, louder this time. 

Kimberly only curls her lips, shaking her head slightly. She ducks behind the next hallway with just enough time to hide a lone tear from Trini’s eyes. 

——

Her eyes look lighter, a sheen of unfallen tears, tears of happiness. Trini and Zack sat on her hospital bed, one on each side, a hand in each of theirs and it’s warm and beautiful. Zack and Trini are telling the story of how they became friends and Ms. Taylor is just listening as if she didn’t watch them grow into one heart, didn’t witness the flower they’ve bloomed into together. 

And it’s sad that she’s left her role as caretaker but she couldn’t be more blessed to have them step up to the plate when she couldn’t anymore. She loves them, even that she knows with a growth inside her brain. 

Trini knows this isn’t it. She knows the older woman has too much to live for. She doesn’t deserve death. 

Zack can’t believe anything less. He knows the woman that gave him breath is the only thing that holds him together. 

——

There’s talk in the hospital about removing the tumor altogether. Trini often hears whispers in white hallways and hushed conversations between doctors in the cafeteria. She never hears the worlds from Kimberly’s mouth so she tries to convince herself not to get her hopes up. But then Kim is saying things like “she’s doing so much better” and Trini can’t help it.

And then there’s suddenly a date on the calendar 2 weeks from now for the operation. And Kim warns that they’re might be adverse effects but they’ll all get their lives back. 

Zack’s smile grows everyday they grow closer. He’s been watching sign language videos and teaching simple words to his mother. It’s not ideal but he’s really trying. 

Trini sleeps easier at night knowing everything will be okay. She holds Kim tight, for something other than a need of security. 

Kim knows that saving a life isn’t going to change how fucked up she is. But she knows it’s a damn good place to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters real short but this fic is still happening! One or two chapters left cuz it’s not fair to keep making u wait more than a month for every chapter. I’ve lost a lot of passion for writing this story but I still wanna finish it. I might start another chaptered fic in the near future if u guys are up for something new?


	10. Chapter 10

Its 3 am and Zack Taylor is usually awake for very different reasons. Tomorrow is his mother’s surgery so instead of pondering life without her, a small plays on his lips as he stares into the darkness of his tiny room, thinking about how beautiful his mother is, how she’ll keep breathing far past when he’d originally thought.

He thinks that maybe this all happened for a reason: a test. To throw Kimberly and Trini together. To add a forth to their family of three. He thinks that maybe Kimberly saved all three of them at once and their all trying their best to return the favor. He’s comforted by the knowledge that Trini is tucked into Kim’s neck some 20 minutes away from his trailer home.

You everything in the tiny trailer home on the side of the mountain. He misses the sound of Trini’s breathing in her sleep, and waking up to the weight of her steps in the early morning. But he knows Kimberly needs her more right now. He knows Kimberly gives Trini something he never could.

His phone wails suddenly. A drone of pop punk next to his ear, before he reaches for the device and accepts the call from an unknown number.

He’s not really sure what they’re saying and it’s too late when they’ve asked: are you Zack Taylor? And he says yes. And it’s all out there. And he’s not sure if this is some cruel joke. And he wonders why they’re apologizing. Like that makes it better. And he’s on the floor. In the small space next to his bed. Grasping his pillow against him until his knuckles turn white. And he’s there for god knows how long. Wondering how the hell this happened. How his mother is suddenly dead. She was doing better. How she’s gone.

His phone rings repeatedly, but he doesn’t hear it. Too imprisoned by the decay of his own brain.

—-

It’s 3 am and Kimberly is playing with Trini’s hair as she sleeps. And Kimberly knows that she’s only half sleeping, her breathing becoming less steady as the moments tick by. And it’s easy. Too easy. And Kimberly is trying to stop believing that something has to go wrong.

But Trini is breaking her out of her dark blue trance. A kiss to the cheek accompanied by a soft hello. And Kimberly knows that she loves her. But she doesn’t want to ruin it by saying it out loud. She thinks Trini knows already anyway.

But she boldly captures her lips in a moment of weakness. And Trini accepts the somewhat practiced pattern now. It’s sweet and secure, with a line of something different. And Kimberly doesn’t want to hold herself back anymore so: “I love you”

slips from her mouth sounding more like a common fact than a ruthless confession. And Trini’s saying it back until Kimberly’s phone is ringing.

It’s Jason.

His voice sounds all wrong. A rough distance to it. And Trini watches the change of her eyes. And Trini knows exactly what’s going on when Kimberly is asking “does Zack know?”

And fight or flight kicks in for the both of them.

They both choose flight, only they’re fleeing different ways.

Getting up from th bed on opposite sides, finding shoes before reaching for each other.

“We have to find Zack.” Trini all but demands, starring into the doctor’s eyes, holding her face between her hands.

“Listen Trini I’m so sorry, i fucked up”, Kim in saying, pushing away from the shorter girl.

“Don’t fucking do this, Kimberly”

“Don’t what?”

There’s a silence. A moment where the universe dares Trini to speak.

“Don’t blame yourself. Don’t run away from me.”

But Kimberly has to run. She doesn’t know how to do anything else.

So she doesn’t lie to Trini, she doesn’t say “I won’t”. She just leaves her own apartment. A raw “I’m sorry” followed by a defeated door closing behind her.

—-

Trini has a problem putting herself before anyone else. Which isn’t okay in general but its particularly bad when she hasn’t had a single moment to grieve for herself and all she can think about is Zack.

She calls him on the elevator ride from Kim’s apartment to the parking lot. The phone rings to many times before going to voice mail. She knows, he knows. She can feel him losing it more and more.

So she calls him again and again. Leaving voicemail after voicemail, of “Zack pick up your fucking phone” between broken sobs, until the words are unintelligible and his voicemail box is full.

And Trini pulls out of the parking lot, sees Kimberly’s car at the end of the street, had half a mind to turn the other way, follow her. But can’t. Zack is blood, and Kimberly is water.

——

Trini can barely hold her keys. So she knocks on the trailer home door, her knuckles feeling bruised from the impact, her ears burn from the noise of bone against metal. He doesn’t open the door. So she keeps scrambling with her keys, until she swallows everything and gets her key in the knob.

And he’s there. On the floor. Losing everything that makes him human, and she can’t watch. Closes her eyes. Sinks down next to him, until she has him in her arms. His head pushing into her chest as he sobs, and sobs.

And he feels tangible for the first time in an hour. Like someone is holding his glass pieces together. An empty vase crashed into the floor. He knows, he won’t always be broken, but he knows the cracks will take a long time to fade, he knows he’ll never be the same.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry bitch I’m fucked up too


	11. Chapter 11

Trini lost count of how many times she’s called Kimberly. It’s too many.

Zack keeps telling her to stop, that Kim needs time to grieve too, but Trini knows her way of grieving isn’t ideal: blaming herself, hurting herself, isolation.

Zack’s doing better. The comfort of seeing old friends at his mother’s wake. Doing his best to hold it together at the sight of her corpse. He starts with a new therapist tomorrow after his mother’s burial.

Trini is trying her best to cry in small doses and be there for Zack. It’s not the best thing to do, she knows that. But the future mental breakdown doesn’t seem as daunting right now.

Zack makes her promise to stay safe, because he knows he can’t make her promise to stay home.

She tells him where she’s headed, but he already knows. She doesn’t leave until it’s dark, and Zack’s exhaustion has caught up with him enough to knock him into a dead sleep.

She knocks on Kim’s door every night since she died. The same time. The same cadence of sound.

No answer.

She gets tired of calling and it going to voice mail. She texts her the funeral arrangements just in case Kimberly decides to stop running.

She calls Jason and Billy and neither of them pick up either. Like they’ve all disappeared at once.

She goes to the hospital. She knows Jason works nights sometimes and she prays that he’s there tonight.

She finds him.

In a patients room, he’s talking to the patient’s mother, with sympathetic eyes. Trini can see the pain there.

She waits for him in the hallway.

When he sees her, his eyes change to something deeper. And Trini’s practiced “we need to talk” goes unsaid. He knows what she wants. He doesn’t put up a fight.

Instead he says, “let’s go somewhere quieter” and Trini follows.

——

“Are you okay?” Jason asks her from his across his desk.

Trini wasn’t sure of her answer, wasn’t sure she was ready to face her own emotions, so she’s saying “you have a nice office, Jason” instead.

“Trini” he tries again, “it’s going to be okay”

“I know” she offers back like it’s not the hardest thing to admit. She knows that one day she’ll be okay without Ms. Taylor. But she doesn’t want to be okay with that.

“Have you heard from Kim?”

“Yeah, she uh, she’s taking some vacation time. Said she was leaving town but didn’t say where she was headed.”

“Have you seen her since..”, Trini pauses like she can’t say it, “did she look okay?”

Jason breathes deeply like he’s trying hard not to burst, “no, I haven’t seen her. But she’s said she’d text me if she was in trouble.”

“Oh”

“Yeah” he croaks back because he’s not sure what else he can manage.

“Can you do me a favor? Text her the funeral arrangements. I don’t want her to miss an opportunity to say goodbye. I don’t want her to think Ms. Taylor wouldn’t want her there.” Trini asks pushing a small piece of paper toward Jason with the information on it.

“Of course, Trini. Billy and I would like to pay our respects too, if that’s alright with you and Zack.”

“Of course, Jason.”

——

There’s a lot of people at the service. Ms. Taylor’s old friends, people Trini and Zack went to highscool with, a girl in Trini’s astronomy class that always gives her the homework, Zack’s coworkers at Krispy Kreme, Zack’s cousins, aunts, and uncles, Billy, Jason, Trini’s old neighbors. She even spots her parents and brothers somewhere in the back. No Kimberly.

Trini tries to keep it from hurting. Zack sees the way she’s looking around. He wants Kim there too, he knows she did everything in her power to keep his mother alive, knows that Kim cared about her more than a patient, knows she cares about him and Trini.

Zack holds Trini’s hand the entire time and she knows she needs it just as much as he does. It’s kind of nice to see his mother so at peace. And Trini promises her that she will take care of Zack no matter what.

Zack doesn’t cry on the ride to the burial which kind of scares her. A stark numbness in his eyes. He starts telling this story about when he was seven and he scraped his knee riding his bike, and how he tried to be all tough and pretend it didn’t hurt. How he ended up needing 9 stitches, and how his mother told him it was okay to cry.

And Trini listens to every word until they’re both smiling a little bit. And they go back and forth exchanging stories they’ve both lived through. “Remember when I accidentally gave you a black eye, and you got in trouble for getting in my way” or “remember when we use to watch her Asian soap operas every Sunday night” or “that time we tried to cook her dinner and you spilled tomato sauce all over the floor”

And they realize they’re making a new memory with her right now, sat next to each other, trying their best.

—-

It’s kind of windy outside, so Zack and Trini are shivering for two reasons, as the crowd of people watch the casket get lowered into the ground. It’s a lot to take in. Her really being gone. The freshly dug up pile of dirt, the clean headstone.

Zack finds himself sitting on the ground, getting as close to her as possible. He and Trini stay there, long after people have begun to leave.

It’s reassuring and cruel at the same time, how many people they’re forced to greet and say goodbye too. A testament to not actually being alone, and a feeling of selfishness for feeling it.

At least they have each other is what Trini keeps reminding herself. Her best friend. Her brother. The only thing she has left of the woman now placed securely 6 feet under.

It’s not long before it’s just the three of them. Placed evenly against the ground, in the harsh winds and overcast drizzle.

Its lonely. Silent, save for the whistle of wind, and the ebb and flow of broken sobs. A missing piece. 

But Kimberly’s made her choice. And Trini’s done chasing her.

——

Trini thinks she’s being delusional when she hears footsteps from far off. But she recognizes the pink winter coat coming their way.

Trini pokes Zack when she sees her, mostly to confirm that she’s not imagining the figure coming there way.

The sullen boy lifts his eyes from the dirt to look to Trini.

“What?” He asks with no malice, but with love and curiosity.

“Look.” Trini points, like the image couldn’t be more clear.

And he does. A breath of “she came” like he needs her just as much as the girl beside him.

And Trini knows in that moment, that Kimberly is family too.

She pushes herself up from the ground with a surge of unknown strength just as Kimberly reaches them.

What look like permanent bags hang loose under the taller girl’s eyes, layers and layers of newly dried tears.

But Trini doesn’t get to look at her for too long, because Kimberly is practically lunging at her; holding her tight against her, releasing a wet sob.

“I’m so sorry,” Kimberly somehow manages into Trini’s hair.

She only holds her tighter, “it’s okay, you’re here now”

——

5 years later:

Zack’s not sure how he made it to his 30th birthday, but the feeling lasts a minute as he’s looking over his birthday cake, candles set ablaze. He knows how he got here, with Kimberly and Trini by his side, friendships from Billy and Jason that he never knew he needed.

A few months after his mother passed away, he decided to go back to school. He knows it’s what she would have wanted. Got a degree in communications and education, he counsels kids in the local schools who are going through the loss of one or both of their parents, visits orphanages, homes for troubled youth, and the occasional prison. He just wants to help. He never forgets to tell them about his mother, that holding on makes you stronger than letting go.

Trini, now his next door neighbor, listens to him talk about all the people he meets, how his eyes light up at how much potential they have. She doesn’t fail to see the smile that forms every time he interacts with a vice principal, Mrs.Oliver at their old high school, or how Tommy becomes topic of conversation more than a few times. Trini practically forces him to ask her out. And of course she says yes.

Trini’s a teacher. Got 25 sixth graders to herself and she loves it. So many innocent eyes, with so much to learn. 

After grieving together for a year, Trini and Kim decided to take some time apart. To see how they fit together without the trauma of everything they were surrounded by when they’d first met. Kim found room to breathe, traded in her lab coat to give something else a chance. She’s been writing ever since, telling the world that mental health is important through telling her story, she’s set to publish her second book in a few months.

And by the time she figured out she wanted to be a writer, she knew who she wanted to have by her side.

Trini.

So, she calls the old number in her cell phone praying that Trini hadn’t changed it in the months that they’d cut each other off. Trini picks up and that’s it.

It’s an easy friendship that everyone around them knows will be inevitably more, and by the time Zack turns 30, they’re living together, Trini across the table in Kimberly’s lap as he blows out his candles.

And he sees it in their eyes, the ocean of love his mother left in all three of them, and he couldn’t feel closer to her.

—-

5 more years later:

Zack walks through the grass toward the headstone with each hand held by a different child. Triton Jin Taylor, Zack and Tommy’s son is almost 3 now, Triton: because it sounds like Trini, and because Tommy really likes the sky and her favorite moon of Neptune is Triton, and Jin after Zack’s mom’s favorite Chinese poet Qiu Jin. And Harriet (who prefers Harri) who Kimberly and Trini adopted two years ago is almost 5 now.

He lets go of their hands to duck down on his knees, place a light kiss against the top of the headstone. He takes them once a month to visit their Grandmother.

He wishes she could’ve seen their eyes, how much Triton looks like her, how happy Kimberly was the first time Harriet came home with them, the way she lives on through the things that she’s taught Zack, Trini, and Kimberly. He wishes Triton and Harri could know her warmth, her wisdom, her laughter.

Zack knows everything happens for a reason. It’s like something had to die for him to get to now, he wishes it wasn’t his mother. But he knows nothing lasts forever. And all he can do is love his family as much as he was loved by his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s over...and it’s a happy ending sort of...sorry for putting you through that! I might be starting a new fic soon but idk so

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea while scrolling through tumblr via the mix of Trimberly, Saving Hope, and just generally really gay posts. I'm not really sure where this is going but pls let me know if you want more of this. Also does Zack's mom have a first name...cuz like the actress that plays her is credited as "Zack's mom" and I need more information...any way
> 
> Pls comment and leave kudos  
> Responses make my day
> 
> Tumblr: eyesfadefromgreentogray
> 
> Insta: rjbower17


End file.
